The Milky Way In An Ebon Mirror

Looking through Orion Shall Rise for something else, I found yet another brief phrase about the Milky Way:

"The Milky Way shone aloft, and again in an ebon mirror of water. Brilliances crowded around it. And mightily over the eastern range came striding the winter constellation called Orion."
-Poul Anderson, Orion Shall Rise (London, 1988), CHAPTER NINETEEN, p. 344.

Obviously, the emphasis here is on Orion and the fact that it is a winter, not a summer, constellation sets the tone for the narrative.

Following a combox discussion here, I was looking for a poem which contains these pertinent lines:

"You who raged within the sun
"When no life had yet begun,
"Will You let it be undone?"
-CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO, p. 395.